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Category: Creative Work

Winter is gone?

When winter was just getting going; I snapped this photo of my dad as he walked the dog ahead of me.

This was just before the winter started in earnest (right after Christmas).  A nice walk on Boxing Day was great, as it wasn’t all that cold really.  We were able to walk along the shore and see water slapping the meager ice there and see the steam rise from the wet sand.

Since then we’ve only walked up the shore a few times; but the winter has retreated and walking the shore is easy again.

It looks like the winter has finally gasped it’s last and spring/summer is about to come on in earnest, making shirts go sleeveless and skirts get shorter.  It’s a warmer day today.

The winter always lurks just outside the door though.

The Stacks of Beer

The Stacks of Beer, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.

Yeah, this is what I see on my way into work every day, the stacks, not the clouds. It’s nice and sunny outside right now, also very green.

I was worried that I would be giving up all the green when I came down here to the City; I’m no nature lover, but I do like the trees and grass the come with nature. London has proven to be very green, excessively so. But like Kubla Khan, I find wisdom in excess and think that the tree lined streets are awesome and I go out of my way to drive down the back streets to stay among said streets.

It's Commander Rick!

Some judicious Google video searches led me to some Prisoners of Gravity episodes online:

For the uninitiated, the young, the vain or the American; Prisoners of Gravity was THE genre fiction discussion program from the 80s to early 90s (it followed me through High School guaranteeing that I would never be “cool” at my rural high school). If you were a fan of any kind of Genre ficiton of any sort, with comics and sci-fi as a preference then Prisoners of Gravity was your mecca. I remember being excited when Commander Rick would interview the Cyberpunk luminaries like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (The Difference Engine) and authors like Alan Moore (Judge Dredd) or Neil Gaiman (Black Lotus).

I strongly encourage you (if you are a fan) to check out “Prisoners of Gravity” online at google video and enjoy what us kids in the know (and not americans) were able to enjoy way back when.

I know those were their less famous works, which is why I chose them.

Jen iz a Zombie

Jen iz a Zombie, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.

She loves the flesh of the arm!

This was from our trip to Manitoulin Island, at the shore of Ice Lake.

It’s the weekend, we’re getting ready to face a return to normalcy for us, me at a day-to-day job and pulling down a paycheck. The main difference being that I am going to be a contractor, any advice for me guys?

This is of concern to me and to you

Given the length of this one I am going to bury this under a “read more” link

Some of you are familiar with my photography habit and some of you are not, but this kind of blind “anti-terrorism” should seethe anyone.

A short anecdote”

I spent about 18 months terrorizing Eugene with my camera, sometimes with Jen sometimes with Elizabeth sometimes with both but never alone. I figured that no one would hassle a family guy. I was never hassled. Once an overweight woman put an end to my photography of a fun kickball game by making the participants stop when she saw me taking photos. Fair enough, she got her photograph on the web and I called attention t her “photo-blocking”

But I’ve never been stopped by someone in any kind of official capacity (even when I took photos of a crash scene).

Good Shutter Speed Tips for you

Canon Blogger

Four Frame Freezing Follies

1. 1/1000th of a second will freeze action moving either up and down or across the frame.
2. 1/500th of a second is good for aerials (coming in over a scene, like in a plane or along those lines)
3. 1/250th of a second is good for freezing action coming straight at you (toward the camera – unless of course it’s my dog who comes toward you then lurches to the side for no apparent reason)
4. 4 seconds takes objects in motion and turns them into streaks of light (think car headlights here – night photography will never be the same)

Inspiration: Where do you Get it?

Well Shut MAh Mouth
Where do you find inspiration?

I find it all over the place, sometimes in the Street. Sometimes at Church.

Sometimes it’s in the book I’m reading.

Sometimes I’m hit with it when I’m just idling at a stop light.

Sometimes, like last night; I’m hit with it by the cruel randomness of the world; I composed a short one-person show about the nature of “God’s Wrath against Natives and the French”

Then there were Tornadoes in West Virginia.

That God guy hates people, I tell ya.

So I was inspired to create the image that accompanies this post by an article on cursing. Which amuses me (cursing, not the image)

While some may think that I am somewhat loose-tongued I think that I restrain myself a great deal more than is necessary. Which I think might say more about the strange thoughts that swirl in my skull and less about the people who (probably rightly) sigh when my mouth opens and I have “that look in my eye.”

In another life I am a Comic, A Priest, A Poet, A Writer and possibly a Prophet.

Here I am only a Prophet.

I predict Rain.

The Road is Loooong

The Road is Loooong, originally uploaded by NiteMayr.

with Maaaaneeee a Wiiiindiing tuuurrnnnn….

Oh yeah, travel travel travel.

It’s not that wrong of a trip to my ‘rents. In fact I’ve already developed the mental “shortcuts” that gloss over repeated long drives that make it seem to take “no time at all”. Frequent long-haulers will know all about this, so will heavy drinkers (it’s time travel, right?)

You drive from point a to point b and back again and the aggregate mental stress of the trip is Zero, right? You don’t accrue it in your head, it’s not wasted (because you never actually spent that time, you just found yourself at the end of the trip at your destination, like you were already there).

I live to punctuate with with short bouts of photography and enthusiastic sing-along with my IPOD (through the scar stereo if there is any question in your mind about it).

This particular drive was surprisingly police free, which is a welcome change from the constant police-a-palooza that the trip usually is. I don’t really speed (I maintain a fairly constant pace, but I don’t speed) but I’m always unnerved by the cops either way. I’ve been passed at times when I have been above the limit (on hills and so on, or when the speed has drifted up to 90) and am always perplexed by it. Where are people going that they need to go so fast? They’ll get there in the end. If you are always late, why not leave earlier?

I dunno, I like the long drive in the spring, summer and fall [even winter when the weather is okay] you get to just “be” then you get somewhere with no effort at all. It’s like being rewarded for watching TV or something.

How about you? How do you feel about long drives? How do you pass the time?